Originally Posted by
vitruvian
Before Buri, to the extent they're going by the myths, there were already both Ymir and Audumbla present in Ginnungagap, the primordial chaos that existed before the organized Nine Worlds. Audumbla, the cow (wonder if Ymir and Audumbla are the originals for Paul Bunyan and Babe) licked Buri out of a block of ice, and then he goes on to father Bor, and in the comics at least we see Asgard existent before Cul and Odin are born, based on the backstory in Fear Itself, even though in the myths Asgard as a city was founded by Odin and company. The gods did make Midgard in particular from the pieces of Ymir's body, but the origins of the other worlds are unclear in both myth and comics.
As to the nature of the Asgardians in the MU, the Earth X and MCU aliens thing doesn't really have much purchase in the 616 MU proper, given that in the classic Celestial Fourth Host storyline they're identified as gods associated with Earth and its life forces just like the Olympians and all the other pantheons that they join with in confronting the Celestial Hosts (and getting walled off into their pocket dimensions for the most part). That would imply that whatever their specific mythic stories, all these different pantheons are indeed related to Gaea and the other Elder Gods that roamed the Earth in ancient, pre-dinosaur extinction times, and thereby ultimately derived from the Demiurge, the personification of the Earth's life force. Maybe for the Asgardians, Gaea was originally Audumbla, but then manifested as Jord or Gaea instead to give birth to Thor because as it turned out Odin doesn't possess the same fetishes as Zeus... ;-)
In his people's pocket dimension, at least. But going by the preponderance of stories told in the MU as a whole, I don't really buy that the MU Asgardians are the ones responsible for creating the Earth or the entire universe that contains it. Not when it contradicts so many other stories concerning Galactus, Sise-Neg, Gaea and the Elder Gods, the Celestials, the Phoenix Force, the other pantheons' particular myths, and on and on. Or even the whole cycle of Ragnaroks thing... if we say that Odin or his dad or granddad really did create the Earth/universe, which one? Certainly not the current one, since we know that Earth existed and the Norse on it worshipped the previous Thor with the red hair and beard. The first one, many cycles ago? But then when did They Who Sit Above In Shadow exist?